Sacchiiin :The man with billion expectations..

One day between the 14th and 18th of November, depending on the match situation, Sachin Tendulkar will walk off the field for one final time. I am not certain yet whether I will wear only black on the day or perform some other mourning ritual, but given that I have no recollection of watching Indian cricket without this man in the team, the significance of the moment will not be lost on me.

He is a man whose name is synonymous with purity, of technique, philosophy and image. If Ian Botham can be seen as the Errol Flynn of cricket, or Viv Richards as the Martin Luther King, or Shane Warne as the Marilyn Monroe, or Muttiah Muralitharan as the hobbit, Tendulkar is surely the game's secular saint.


Much has been said about the timing of his retirement, by both experts and general fans alike. Opinion have ranged from "he left it too late" to 'he had one last great series left in him' and everything in between. I myself had gone from hoping he would retire while he was still at the top of his game, to silently accepting him going on and on.

But there was something heroic about his stubborn refusal to give-in and disappear into the sunset.
We can all make our best guesses, but only Tendulkar knows what kept him going for so long - whether it was records, advertising revenue, or some other inner Olympus. He and only he alone could have known When, finally, enough was enough !!.
The fact is, for the best part of 20 years, he was one of greatest batsmen the game had ever seen. He was someone who realized he had a gift, worked tirelessly to hone it, and reaped the rewards.Along the way he amassed wealth and fame beyond the wildest dreams of all but a handful of our countrymen,
but he also represented our country with understated grace and dignity, both increasingly rare commodities in modern sport.
Young cricketers revered him, his peers respected him, and old-timers unapologetically fawned over this precocious kid who made it big.


Tendulkar wore the India flag on his helmet with pride; he cared passionately about winning, and he was determined to be the best.
I would even go as far as to say that this sort of sustained excellence by one individual is unprecedented in the history of Indian sport. What better role model for a country which so often content with mediocrity?

That's not to say, there were no detractors or voices of dissent. In our culture where success is often envied more than celebrated, Tendulkar has copped more than his fair share of criticism. The most common complaint has been that he was a selfish player, someone who was part of a team but played largely for himself.
Statistics were produced by people who sought to sum up a man in numbers. His talent may never have been in doubt, but his motives and goals often were.

I would say that it would be  a  travesty if Sachin Tendulkar's career is remembered for his numbers. It is unthinkable that two of his statistical peaks - 100 international hundreds and 200 Tests - will ever be bettered, but numbers are a somewhat cold and impersonal way to remember sporting heroes by.They are best remembered by the memories, by the way they touched our hearts and lit our lives. And on that count, Tendulkar is unlikely to ever be surpassed.


I believe Indian cricket owes much of its current status to Tendulkar. He defined and transcended the game, and played a key role in keeping it relevant through the barren 1990s when Indian cricket seemed in danger of going the same way as hockey. Our once-world-beating team had inexplicably turned distinctly average, but in Tendulkar we still had a genuinely world-class player, or "prized asset", as marketing executives might say.

For me, and a generation of fans, Indian cricket was indistinguishably linked with this one individual. In our minds, they were one and the same. He grew up with us, and we grew up with him. He was special, and yet one of us. Throughout my life, whenever and wherever I've had a conversation with someone about cricket, Tendulkar's name has always been invoked. When people from other countries, especially England, the "spiritual home" of cricket, have raved about him, I've felt more than a twinge of satisfaction, even pride.

Tendulkar was embedded in our collective consciousness, part of our life. He was the common language that everyone who cared about the sport understood. The thought of surveying a cricketing landscape without him will be to chart new and unfamiliar territory.
This man was meant to be ageless , to be around for the ages; the human equivalent of the Taj Mahal.


And when he steps out in India colours for the penultimate time in his life he will indeed want to soak in every second of the atmosphere. He will want to live his dream to the fullest, that of playing for India for two final times in his life. And what about us? What will we do? The very least we can do is just be there, watch him stride out, take guard and take strike and hope the final ten days don't end. They will indeed but memories will always be there to fall back on.
And so, as the date approaches, I am steeling myself. Maybe it's the time of the day, or maybe it's the time of my life, but when I imagine this cricketing colossus departing the arena one final time to the chants of "Sacchiiin, Sachinnnn",
the only thing I can think about it is the closing scene from the movie Gladiator, the one in which the Emperor's daughter stands beside a fallen Maximus and makes one short, simple exhortation to the masses:

"He was a soldier of Rome. Honour him."

Rahul Dravid "Bradman of gentlemanship and respect in modern cricket" !!!

There are some sports personalities ranging from Lance Armstrong to Andre Agassi, Bjorn Borg to Steve Waugh who have defied the adversity and champions of the time to emerge as Champions themselves. These players have made the sporting arena all the more beautiful and competitive. For me Rahul Dravid is one of these players who have adorned the sports with performances and impeccable persona. In this era when indiscipline and hooliganism are the order of the sporting world Rahul Dravid has restored cricket as a gentleman’s game.

Dravid, the Wall of Indian Cricket team for decades is one man who hates to see a fall! Every single time, this man has risen out of ashes, just like a phoenix and went on to create histories after histories. This selfless man sees the benefit of his team before seeing his advantages. Rather, there is no such word like “personal benefit” in his own dictionary. He may not be a Tendulkar, who is applauded as GOD in the history of world cricket, but what is his fault that he was born in his era? Rahul is the only batsman who has scored more than 10,000 runs in both the formats after Sachin Tendulkar! But this is also true that there cannot be two gods at one time.So, this selfless creature has been given the status of “The Wall” and “Mr. Dependable” and has been kept behind curtains since ages!

This illustrious journey of Rahul started about 15 years ago when he, who traces his roots to Indore, made his debut on that sunny day at Lord’s when two young Indian batsmen heralded their entry into the Test arena. Rahul Dravid started his sojourn as a Test batsman alongside Sourav Ganguly. Dravid got out on 95 while the Bengal Tiger went on to steal the show with a marvelous century. This was just the beginning. 16 years down the line, the script remains unchanged…
When Dravid reached the 10,000 run landmark in March 2008, a feat which has put him sixth in the list of batsmen in the history of Test cricket, it was Sehwag who earned all the adulation for his record breaking triple hundred; leaving ‘The Wall’ being credited only for his supportive innings. Though he has remained the unsung hero of Indian cricket, life has come full circle for Rahul in the 15 long years that he has served the game.

While Ganguly did not live up to the potential purely as a Test batsman, Rahul slowly but gradually carved his niche as one of the best ever Test batsmen the purists had seen.He gave rock solid stability to the Indian middle order, standing amidst the ruins on foreign soils on numerous occasions. With his sound techniques and tremendous temperament, he made the crucial number three position his own.
Rahul Dravid is arguably the best Indian batsman to bat at number three. It is a position which batsmen like Don Bradman occupied in the past. His average of over 52.31 in Tests is an achievement in itself. He is easily India’s “winningest” batsman. Tendulkar may be the most talented, Gavaskar the most solid, Laxman the most incandescent, Vishwanath and Azharuddin the true artists, but it is Dravid who has had the biggest long-term effect on Indian cricket results ,his innings have won more matches for India than any cricketer in history . Among many saluting sobriquets, one rises up distinctly different from others. 'The Wall' is a name that sits immovable on the best-ever one down batsman to have ever played for the country. The word Dravidian has taken on a new meaning in the last decade and a half – moving away from the ancient origins of a civilization as old as time, across the geographical expanse of the southern parts of India and now denotes the broad blade which has for years thwarted the most diabolic of deliveries.

It is said that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Rahul Dravid, with all his grit, has always proven the proverb. We have innumerable instances to recall and prove how dedicated the gentleman has been to his game. When the other batsmen of the team fell apart like nine pins, tamely surrendering before the fiery fast bowlers on green-tops, it was Dravid who held fort.

He played some truly world class Test knocks in historic victories, and had even adapted to the shorter version of the game. He might not have been born to play cricket, but he sure seemed born to kiss greatness. He was christened a lot of things, but one of those nicknames stood out. The Wall isn’t an apt moniker for Dravid only because of the durability and solidity of the structure; just as a wall is constructed brick by brick with a lot of sweat, so have Dravid’s batting repertoire and many an inning. From being the stuff of idle cricket jokes because of his slow pace of run making, he ‘quickly’ went on to swot a 50 off 22 balls in the slog overs of an ODI. He forever put a price tag on his wicket, and his watertight technique meant that he has now faced more balls in Test cricket than any other batsman to have played the game. The most amazing thing was Dravid’s powers of concentration in test cricket. While Sachin would often score his
centuries on an elevator, Dravid would take the steep stairs, so to speak. But very soon, this stairs man started scoring the runs just as often as Sachin, sometimes even more so.

Many emerging cricketers can only dream of what Rahul has done for the Indian cricket – fighting so many battles and bringing glory to his country! With his warrior like attitude and amazing approach to the game, he has become one of the greatest icons of the world cricket. I know he
does not have centuries like Tendulkar, killer-instinct like Ganguly, or strike rate like that of Sehwag, but one thing which makes him superior over others is his selfless, generous and unselfish approach towards his love for this game! And this facet is enough to shut the mouths of all those critics who babble about this icon. In this team, where we have all the politics running in the veins, players fighting to get slots, planning conspiracies for acquiring the position of a captain, we have one such player who thinks above all these aspects – he is Rahul Dravid!

Somewhere in all these years, Rahul never got his due as a player! But can we question about his adherence and devotion for his team. Has he ever refused to bat at any position, which was allotted to him? Has he ever denied keeping wickets at the time when he was struggling with bat? He managed to handle both the responsibilities at the same time, just because Indian team
needed to accommodate the position of one extra batsman in the team!Destiny has hardly allowed him to steal the show on the cricket field. From the very first Test he has remained an unsung hero. The story remained same after 16 years at the top. Despite being the second highest run-getter in Tests, Dravid remained in the shadow of his contemporaries like Sachin
Tendulkar, Brain Lara and Ricky Ponting throughout his entire career. Probably His name will never feature in the All-Time Bests’ list. Probably, destiny never wants him in the limelight…

Here is what legendary spin bowler Shane Warne wrote in his anecdote:

“The fortress could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent of a dozen cannon firing all at once to blast him down.”

The speech that Rahul Dravid delivered few month back at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra was as splendid as the man himself. I sat through the night to first read through the text and then heard the entire speech to actually understand the depth of thought behind those magnanimous words. More than his exploits on the cricketing field, he portrays a wider ray of hope to individuals wanting to succeed in life with elegance and a gentlemanly demeanor.One of the most significant aspects of the speech that Dravid delivered was when he mentions about the historical significance between India and Australia from the days of pre independence. Well, it might be fair enough to suggest that one had to prepare such a speech on the context of Bradman but you could see the natural flow of thought in his speech. It wasn't made up for the sake of this occasion; it was more like the thoughts were meant to be articulated on such a prestigious occasion. My personal opinion is that he has conveyed that a deep rooted understanding of the historical significance helps you rejuvenate and perform at the highest arena for a sustainable period of time. He says "everytime I walk on the pitch, I know I am playing a part in cricket's history". History and its aesthetic understanding helps us to recognize the role our existence plays in this world, it helps us to show our place in the world no matter how marginal it is. This deep rooted understanding of history has reinforced his priority of keeping the team first all the time.Even his humour is so elegant that you often wonder how seamlessly his
class pervades into humour too. Dravid is the closest that one comes to the common man; understated and extremely hardworking. He reasserts that attitude is more important than talent at any point of time. He provides a spring board for people who want to succeed with the old school of thought for whom dignity and pride is more important than winning itself. In a generation and era where class, elegance and fortitude takes a back seat in comparison to brashness, controversy and fame, Rahul Dravid stands out as a beacon of light.

"D of Dravid stands for determination, dedication and discipline,”

Rahul Dravid is great example of discipline, dedication and determination. His cricketing feats are great proof of that. He is not most gifted cricketer that’s why he puts forward great example for us to learn. He shows us how to maximize your potential, because nothing good comes easy in
life. Neither had it come for him. Nor will it for us. His graph as a player teaches us that success is one thing and retaining it is other. With his well cultured admirable behavior, far from on/off the field controversy, he is an idol for any person who wants to be successful, for that matter in any field of career. I don't know why. For my generation, or at least for me, Dravid represented the ideal middle class work ethic. It is only now, towards the end of his career that I realize how much this has sub-consciously ingrained into me. Ganguly was always the prince - great player and captain, but the spoilt rich kid from Behala, well-connected politically, and not shy of using those connections to good effect. Sachin is gifted - a once in a lifetime talent - along with the smartness of Bombay's streets - a man of the masses. Dravid is the "middle class" - professional upbringing - taught from a young age that studies, discipline and an honest work ethic are the key to success; not connections or politics; not street smartness. In a chaotic, corruption ridden, nepotism driven world that is India, Dravid showed that merit can succeed; that nice guys can finish first. He is to me a symbol; a big symbol; along with a few others - such as Narayanamurthy of Infosys; of belief that the system just may work the honest way.

I would like to end here with a saying which Rahul Dravid has exemplified: Patience, Persistence and Practice leads to PERFECTION.

Most of all, Rahul is the epitome to prove that you can be good, elegant, classy with an old school of thought and yet succeed at the pinnacle of the modern era.

Stop the Bullshit !!!

Ben Hilfenhaus’ body is built for a purpose, and you can’t imagine that purpose was ever running, diving and throwing all in one motion. Hilfenhaus doesn’t have the body shape of an athletic fielder. He’s not a huge man, but he’s got a solid trunk on him, more tree than ballet dancer. There aren’t many moving parts. It just all seems to be made to propel the ball at a fair rate and swing it away.
That’s why it was odd that a Hilfenaus run, dive and throw was the final sign that India have just not been up to it this summer. The whole thinking behind the incident told you everything you needed to know about Team India.

A nightwatchman came in for a No. 7 in a dead-rubber Test that was already lost only for the proper batsman to try and farm the strike and be run out by a few centimetres when the opposition fast bowler threw the stumps down as India’s star batsman didn’t quite dive to full effect
There isn’t a part of this run-out that doesn’t show India just hasn’t been with it this series. They are every bit the middle-aged guy with a comb over and party shirt dancing on his own in the corner of a crowded nightclub.

The idea that Wriddhiman Saha, who had handled himself very well in the first innings during a tough period, would need a nightwatchman is absurd. But let’s say that he wanted one.
Why was Virat Kohli trying to get on strike so bad, it wasn’t as if India needed that single, any chance of winning the game had disappeared long ago? Surely it wasn’t so that Ishant Sharma didn’t have to face Nathan Lyon, known tail-end destroyer that he is.Even Virat’s dive was not fully stretched out, it was a technical error in the middle of a bunch of basic cricket smarts errors. Perhaps he was tired. Mentally and physically.And why didn’t Sharma say no, any single there was unnecessarily risky, and he must have known his job was to face the bowling, not stand at the non-strikers end. Also, why is Ashwin India’s spokesman, they have a media manager already, so why is Ashwin sent out every time India have a bad day when the average age of the side is 110-years old. Surely one of the experienced players should come out, Tendulkar hasn’t come out once, and VVS only once.

And while we’re talking about it, why was Australia p***ing about with stupid batting and not just slogging to set a total. They had five wickets in hand. Just have a go. Can you even believe they batted on for 11 minutes after lunch? I mean why does it really matter if they are 500 runs in front or 478, or 283,095 runs in front, it wasn’t like India were going to go for one total, or feel psychologically obstructed by another.

This is all ridiculous. If I were Virender Sehwag, I would have probably requested the extra 30 minutes be tacked on to the day’s play, because what is the point of a fifth day in this Test.

My main fear at the moment is that CA and the BCCI will conspire to add another Test to this series and ESPNcricinfo will cover that Test.
Just end this. Now. Please. Come on. we’ve done our time. This is pointless. Please help us.

I don’t care about Ponting’s comeback, Clarke’s good PR, Virat’s finger, Dhoni’s suspension, Sehwag’s natural game, Siddle’s wrist position or even Sachin’s pointless statistical milestone, I just want this all to stop. Even you Big Bash, you can p*** off too. Please end Australian summer. I don’t care if I’m abducted by rough-loving aliens, just get me out of here. It’s enough already.

Eight is more than enough for me.

Don't tell me that it's 'Just a game' !!!!

The scene had to be seen to be believed. It was midnight, there wasn't any store open and yet there was a teeming, swaying, gathering mass of humanity. Men and women, old and young, inebriated and sober, on vehicles and on foot - all bound by one fact and one only: They had discovered the Indian in them.

Roads that had never seen this kind of movement at this hour were jam-packed. Vehicles were stuck, moving 10 metres in half an hour, but that was alright - no one was trying to get anywhere, everyone simply wanted to be a part of the festivities. At one point, I thought I should ask the group of people I was with to get back inside the car because I had spied a police car coming from the distance. Then I paused - there was a hand that was coming out of the police car as it neared a throng. That hand was raised in an unmistakable gesture of high-fiving the revelers. There wasn't going to be a crime committed today - not for the next few hours. Not when the country was in the throes of a collective happiness the like of which it had never seen. Tonight, the police were part of the delicious madness. I didn't get back in my car - I waited till I could bump hands with the man behind the wheel of the police vehicle.

There was a man in a corner waving a giant India flag. He didn't look like he had come with anyone else, and yet he was bear-hugging every body within arm-reach. He was draping the flag over someone else, and high-fiving every passer-by on vehicle. There was a man on a motor-cycle. He didn't have anyone riding with him. And yet, from a moving vehicle he found the energy and the insouciance to holler a 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and exchange fist-bumps with whoever seemed to be passing him. There is a pedestrian, but he's not on the footpath. He's in the middle of the road. And he spontaneously starts a chant of 'Sachin...Sachin'. what feels like 50,000 voices immediately join in. They might have come alone, but there was nobody who was alone on this night.

Grown men are not supposed to dance like this. Since when did the streets of a city become a post-midnight celebratory meeting place? And India will not be allowed to forget this party. 1983 exists as televison recording. 2011 will half be remembered by the street videos. For every man who is dancing, there is one taking a video - on a cellphone, on a camera, on possibly other sophisticated devices whose names I don't know. Yes, India will not be allowed to forget this party - there are just too many recordings of it!
However, perhaps I should pull my friends - respectable, intelligent, mature men in ordinary lives - away from the throng where they are dancing without a care in the world, without a music beat to be heard and with only the accompaniment of a thousand screaming voices? I would, but I find that I'm part of the throng. My voice is contributing to the collective roar. Me too dancing in wild abandon.

The events of this night play back in memory. The first of many re-runs. The men who have won the Cup will be over the moon. And I'd wager that the men who might not have been a part of the winning squad, but who had just as much of a hand in bringing India to this summit on this day, will be just as happy. I raise a silent toast to Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid. To Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. To John Wright and Javagal Srinath. And of course to the entire Indian team of today. And to Sachin Tendulkar. You beautiful champion - who cares if you did not score runs. You had a date with destiny and you kept it.

The images continue to flash: There was emotion on the field from MS Dhoni. There were tears from many Indian players and millions of fans. I had walked out in the streets after the win. I was greeted, hugged, and fist-bumped by people I did not know. I dnt know when was the The last time I had greeted and hugged so many strangers !!
Eleven men have won a trophy in a sport that only 10 countries in the world play at any sort of competitive level. But Please don't tell me that it's 'just a game' !!
This is not just a game this is "The Religion" which can make this country united !!!

Hope can drive a man insane....but.... Dreams are made of these...

"Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." This is what Red said to Andy Dufresne in the classic 'The Shawshank Redemption', 1994.

Today India started the day with a hope. Zaheer Khan was un-hittable by the Lankans, and the fielding made one suspect that coach Kirsten had injected some South African genes into the Indian team. What had been injected though was much simpler and much more visible: Desire.... The Indians were leaping, diving, running as if they had to train with Usain Bolt and the Sri Lankans found it going tough. Visions were raised of a bowling choke, leading to a sedate chase. Then Dilshan and Sangakkara built a stand, after which Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene got the scoreboard ticking over much more regularly. Sangakkara went, and Mahela - who had started the World Cup with a 100 off 80 balls against Canada, before losing his form, decided the final would be the perfect place to recapture it on the way to a 100 off 84 balls. Sri Lanka scored 63 runs off the final five overs of the innings, turning a average-competitive total into a very tough one. Hope... that had been steadily growing in Indian fans' hearts, must have done a quick about-turn and headed straight into insanity territory where people around me were taking vows of not eating rice for a months or quit drinking for years.. some faithfuls were planning to fast for next 11 Wes'days...

Sri Lanka had ended up with a very good total, it was true. No batsman hitting a century in a World Cup final had ended up on the losing side - this was also true. No side playing the final at home had won the World Cup, Yes. And no side had chased as many as 275 runs to win in a World Cup final. Yet hope had not completely disappeared. After all, no chasing side had a set of openers like Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar .. one of the most dangerous opening pair world cricket has ever seen....did they????

As it turned out, after just 6.1 overs India didn't have them either. Sehwag had gone off the second ball of the innings, trapped plumb in front by Lasith Malinga. He took with him a sizable chunk of hope and one needlessly wasted review. However, Tendulkar was still there, and it is an axiom of an Indian fan's life that as long as he is there at the crease, hope is never fully banished from the heart. For 13 glorious balls he made us believe. It was written - he would get to his 100th century while anchoring India's chase and bringing home the trophy that he most wanted and yet had never got, in front of an adoring home-crowd. God had rested on the 7th day,in twice the number of balls, the God of Indian cricket chased a ball from Malinga that was going away and had to leave to stunned silence.

31/2 in 6.1 overs with the two principal match-winners back in the pavilion. Bye-bye hope, welcome Insanity.

walks in Two Delhi boys :Gauti and Virat.Two future India captains maybe. It was insanity to hope that these guys will make the match out of it ... But again fate has some other plans...these two men with limitless stomachs for toughing it out and cojone (Excuse my language Please!1 ) to probably think to themselves "So what if Tendulkar and Sehwag have gone? We are still there."

They dusted off the early dismissals and focussed on the task at hand: Gambhir looked fluent from the start, Kohli first settled down and then started opening up. Visions of IND-SL match cropped up (December 24, 2009). Irrestible parallels were drawn - India chased a much higher total in that match and the combined score of Tendulkar and Sehwag was 18 then too, as it was today. Would Kohli and Gambhir repeat their heroics? Kohli, it turned out, would not. 114/3 in the 22nd over, and India was once more on the back-foot. Out walked MS Dhoni, ahead of the in-form Yuvraj Singh. He had - he said later - a point to prove: to himself. And he backed himself to prove it. It was a courageous decision on the part of a man who hadn't been scoring too many runs so far, knowing that if it back-fired, he would have had to face a barrage of questions.It didn't backfire. Dhoni didn't allow it to.

Gambhir and Kohli had taken India from despair to uncertainty. Dhoni and Gambhir took them from uncertainty to looking increasingly likely winners. Gambhir had already got to a superb fifty, and during the course of the stand Dhoni joined him. "We see your Mahela," the Indian fans seemed to be saying, "and we raise you a Gautam." The stand had crossed the century mark, and Gambhir was nearing his own. He would have got it too, except for a rush of blood that saw a fairly straight 'you miss, I hit' ball from Perera duly miss Gambhir's flailing bat and head for his stumps. Nevertheless, with 97 off 122, while chasing in a World Cup final, Gambhir had entered the pantheon of the select few who have played great World Cup final knocks.

Out walked India's World Cup talisman - Yuvraj Singh. The game was in the balance, with India having a slight advantage. Recognizing the moment and realising that he
needed to seize it, MS Dhoni turned it on. He had been scoring at almost a run-a-ball until Gambhir's dismissal. After Yuvraj's entry, he unleashed a brutal square-cut for six. When Malinga came back for his final spell, there was one quiet over, after which he was taken for 11 runs, with 9 of them coming off Dhoni's blade. With that, India's required rate was 5 runs to win off 12 balls.

5 off 12, becomes 4 off 11 with a single and MS Dhoni is back on strike. He finishes it in the way only he can. Ice-cold eyes, even cooler head and a mighty swing over the sight-screens. He's had a previous highest of 34 in this World Cup, and he ends it by scoring 91 not out off 79 balls. For the first time after 28 years, a nation erupts with joy and the prize we sought is won!!!!!

Finally It was the Hope which prevails and took us home !!!!! love you team India.... You made us Proud !!!

"Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." - Andy Dufresne, in reply to Red. From, 'The Shawshank Redemption', 1994.

Nehra !! The man gifted with the most famous set of teeth in the cricketing world after Kamran Akmal’s !!!

The most important cricket match in a long time was threatening to go horribly wrong for India. Ashwin had just been replaced with Ashish Nehra.Experts were going ballistic, fans had started collecting stones, and Ashish Nehra was facing the scary prospect of becoming Piyush Chawla and Ashish Nehra rolled into one. But the man with the physics-defying motor action proved everyone wrong with two wickets, an economy rate of 3.3 and a fielding effort that had everyone rubbing their eyes in disbelief. How did he do it? A thorough investigation reveals the secrets.Below are the top 5 reasons for Nehra's performance..
1 Sreesanth’s tweet :
On the eve of the match, Sreesanth tweeted ‘You have to believe in yourself when no one else does’. Now, if one can get past Sreesanth’s exterior, one may discover the Aristotle within him. Nehra is one of the few who has managed to do that. Sreesanth’s tweets have always had a profound impact on Nehra and, suddenly, he forgot all the jokes on him doing the rounds and was re-invigorated with new-found confidence. It was just the kind of confidence he needed to perform in front of Prime Ministers, the Gandhi family, a billion people, and Viveik Oberoi.
2 Astrology and Mandira
Bjorn Borg had once said that he handled pressure by sleeping, preferably not alone. Imran Khan advises sleeping pills before an important match. Nehra needed neither company nor pills to sleep. On the night before, Nehra had just switched on the TV where he saw a Hindi news channel declare India’s victory. “Dhoni ki kundali kar degi kamaal. Pakistan ko le doobega shani,” they declared vociferously. On another channel he watched Mandira Bedi tell Javed Miandad that India was going to win the next day. Surely, the stars and Mandira Bedi both couldn’t be wrong, he reckoned. He slept peaceful in the knowledge that all will be good the next day.
3 Breakfast :
The next morning Nehra followed a breakfast routine that many believe to be a foolproof way to succeed. At breakfast, his eyes followed Sachin Tendulkar the way Shane Warne’s follows a pretty young thing. Sachin picked out a banana, so did Nehra. Sachin poured cold milk over his cornflakes, Nehra followed suit. Sachin crushed a walnut and bit into it. Nehra did the same, with scant regard for the most famous set of teeth in the cricketing world after Kamran Akmal’s. For Nehra, nothing would come between him and success in this match.
4 Dressing room debate::
As India lost wickets, Nehra knew his batting would be called upon to take India to a defendable total. But, there was one problem. Munaf wanted to go in before him. Given that this decision could have a major impact on the match, tempers flared. Eventually, when Zaheer got out, Nehra rushed out into the ground before Munaf could react. In the end, Munaf too got his chance to go into the middle. “Chalo sabki batting aayi,” Nehra said offering an olive branch. But the argument pumped up both the speedsters. And it showed.
5 Cheerleader No 1 :
“Do it for Poonam,” a spectator screamed at Nehra while he fielded at 3rd man. It was just the war cry he needed. Nehra remembered that the country wanted to win the cup, not just for Sachin but also for Poonam Pandey who’s promised to bare it all if India wins the cup. Nehra certainly didn’t want to be the one to deny the country such a momentous occasion in its history. And, the rest is history.

The Atlas who would not shrug : Tendulkar

21st May 1997: A date that has annoyed, irritated or in some cases tormented many a cricket fan. It was on this day some Saeed Anwar broke Viv Richards' record for the highest ever score in a One Day International. The record was thus passed on from a legend of the game to a player who was merely good, but by no stretch extraordinary - Anwar averaged 37.62 against the major nations in ODIs, and away from home his average shrank to 26.70.

Then last year, another name joined Anwar at the top of the list: Charles Coventry. Even after he scored 194 not out, a lot of people in a lot of cricketing discussions over lots of beers in lots of pubs, would still be asking: Charles who ?

The anomaly at the top of the record charts was begging to be corrected. As my friend gaurav said, he was waiting for this day since that fateful May night almost 13 years ago.

He was not alone. There were thousands - millions probably - who felt that the name that belonged at the top of the table was that of Sachin Tendulkar.

In what is proving to be a golden twilight of his career, Tendulkar has systematically gone about checking all the un-checked boxes in his cricketing CV. One important one was ticked when he led a mammoth fourth innings chase against England at the same ground that he had failed to complete the job against Pakistan in 1999. Another was accomplished today, with the world's highest ODI score and first ODI double-century. No other name seemed to have belonged so naturally at the top of the list than his.

Until today, Tendulkar had seemed like the logical successor to Viv Richards as the greatest ODI batsman of his generation. Not anymore.

He is now undoubtedly, the greatest ODI batsman ever. He has made the great Viv seem like a mere prelude to the real thing.

From the moment he came out to bat and stroked his first boundary to the moment when he raised his arms in triumph, in release, in acknowledgment - he looked like he was batting in a different zone. This is supposed to be a man on his last cricketing legs, but he didn't use a runner for a single minute of his innings and came out to field from the first ball to boot! With Sachin Tendulkar though, what is supposed to be and what is, don't always match.

One man is not supposed to carry the hopes of a nation of a billion every time he walks out to bat. But he does.

One man is not supposed to be the barometer of a country's happiness - he is being thrust with an impossible responsibility. But he is.

A man who makes his debut as an impressionable, precocious 16 year old is not supposed to last for 20 years as an international celebrity and not have any outrageous scandals associated with him. One man isn't supposed to display a superhuman quality of being human, if he has been granted the superhuman gifts that Sachin Tendulkar has. But he remains so.

A man is supposed to be mortal, to be granted the allowance for errors. But he isn't.

A man is not supposed to retain the same enthusiasm for a sport across more than 20 years, having spent the majority of those years under public scrutiny like no other. But he has.

I thought I had expended all possible superlatives for Sachin Tendulkar, when he completed twenty years in international cricket but I forgot, for a moment, that with Sachin Tendulkar superlatives don't ever exhaust themselves. There might come a day when Roget's Thesaurus will fail to find adequate words to describe the man, but he himself will not fail.

As he raised his arms in triumph, a country pumped its collective fist and let out a collective primeval roar. The relief, the sense of accomplishment, and the satisfaction at getting to the landmark was all the more keenly felt because for a long time now, there has been only one man who seemed capable of breaching the 200-run mark in an ODI. Sehwag has also threatened to do that, but Sehwag has never come as close as Sachin has. He made 186 not out against New Zealand at Hyderabad, but that was in an era when 300 was an almost certainly winning score. He then hit 163 not out against New Zealand a year ago, but retired with cramps. And then of course there was that heart breaking 175 against the Aussies in November last year.

Many of us feared that his best shot at the record was gone with the end of that innings. When we, his fans, could not pick ourselves up after that shattering loss, how would he manage to do so?

However, while that loss might have broken lesser men, it seemed to spur Sachin Tendulkar on towards ensuring that such heart-break was never to be experienced again. The next time he came so close, there would be no denying him. And so he battled on. He had hit the ball with unbelievable power, and his hands must have been tiring. He had placed the ball with unbelievable dexterity, and his inventiveness must have been ebbing. He had run every single run with unwavering commitment as hard as he could - his partners' and his own - and his legs must have been sending urgent messages to his brain to let up. But nothing was going to sway him today. There had been too many golden moments snatched from him at the last moment. This one was going to be had.

The final flourish of a golden career is going considerably better than the purple patches of most other batsmen's careers. Two check-boxes remain to be ticked - a Test triple century beckons, but more than that, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will want to keep his date with destiny on April 2nd 2011 in Mumbai.

Even if those landmarks are not achieved though, India will remain happy. He doesn't require much effort to keep India happy - all he has to do is get hold of a bat and stride out to the middle.

And so, years from now, when he has retired, we will be fondly paraphrasing Robert Browning to the next generation and the next: Sachin Tendulkar was in his batting gear and all was right with India.

Tendulkar become Sachin again...!!

Nov-5 2009

Coming November, Sachin Tendulkar would have played 20 years of international cricket. During those twenty years, although things have changed radically in Indian cricket, someone who looked at the scorecard for today's match, would have been forgiven for thinking that Indian cricket was stuck in a time-warp and that nothing had changed from Tendulkar's early years to now. It was a familiar tale of Tendulkar being the one-man army taking on the opposition under daunting circumstances. But what an army he proved to be! He very nearly pulled off a miracle for India, but destiny had only one landmark in store for him today. The man himself would have much preferred an Indian victory to 17,000 runs, but it was not to be


It is not every day that you can make 175 in an international game of cricket and feel so thoroughly miserable,but its Sachin !!!Nobody does solos better than him, nor, perhaps, has anyone endured as much heartbreak during those solos. Tendulkar almost broke the record for the highest score in one-day internationals (19 short of Saeed Anwar's mark - and 11 short of his own personal best); he almost led India to what would have been the second highest winning score batting second in an ODI (they finished four runs shy of beating Australia's 350-4 and had needed only 19 off 18 balls when Tendulkar was out); he almost kept India's hopes of becoming the world No 1 alive (now that Australia have a 3-2 lead in the seven-match series they cannot be overtaken). It was India of the 90s all over again: Again the same Sachin careless and free , Fighting alone .. same india choking again !!!! Tendulkar almost chased 351 on his own but, with the target in sight, he got out and the rest choked, falling short by three runs with two balls still to go. Remember In Chennai January 1998-99, Tendulkar, having played an innings as incredible as this, left the last three wickets 18 to get; tonight he left them 19 off 17 and we did it again !!!

And to cap all that, it was reported today that some 12-year-old kid has beaten one of Tendulkar's earliest feats. One Sarfaraz Khan made 439 off 421 balls in a three-day match for Springfield Rizvi school in Mumbai against the Indian Education Society. When he reached 330, he passed Tendulkar's best as a schoolboy, which he set in 1988 as a 15-year-old.
Sarfaraz then went on to pass the 349 that Vinod Kambli had made in the same game as Tendulkar - they shared a stand of 664 - and by the time he was out Sarfaraz had the highest score ever made in the inter-school Harris Shield tournament.

Is this the new SACHIN in making ...!!!

The Master moment !! The man with billion expectations..

I have read somewhere that :
“For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.”
After Sachin Tendulkar’s first Test match in Karachi 20 years ago produced just 15 runs and five wicketless overs for 25, hardened cynics might have questioned the wisdom of thrusting a 16-year-old on to such a stage.


A week later, in Faisalabad, there was nowhere to hide. When Tendulkar arrived at the crease to join his Mumbai teammate, Sanjay Manjrekar, India were in disarray at 101 for 4. In a column many years later, Wasim Akram wrote: “It was a lush green wicket, possibly the greenest I’ve seen in Pakistan, and Tendulkar was batting on 20-odd when a ball from me hit him. I immediately asked him if he was alright and he looked me in the eye and nodded. I was a 21-year-old then, so I did not give the matter much thought, but in retrospect that score of 50-odd was the first hint the world got about Tendulkar’s special talent.”

For the world, it was a hint. For the boy himself, it was so much more. “My first innings was a disaster,” he said. “When I walked out at Faisalabad, I told myself that I would do my best to just stay at the wicket, even if I didn’t score runs.” He finished with 59, having stayed at the crease for a shade over 4 hours. And although it didn’t win the Test, or set the pulse racing, it meant a lot to someone thrown in at the deep end. “I said to myself, ‘You can handle this, it’s not a place where you don’t belong.’”

In one of its special issues, Time magazine had Tendulkar’s debut at No. 4 in its list of Top 10 Sporting Moments, behind Michael Jordan’s The Shot (against the Cleveland Cavaliers), Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose being banned from baseball and Arsenal winning the English league title in the last minute of the 1988-89 season. In the years to come, you can take it for granted that thousands will claim that they were at the National Stadium on 15 November when he walked out in an India cap for the first time. In retrospect, it was certainly an I-was-there moment, though few could have imagined that Tendulkar would still be punching the ball through the covers two decades later.

Perhaps we in India can’t really fathom the full extent of the adoration and expectation that he has had to deal with in that time. Matthew Hayden, another batting colossus of our age, gave voice to what many outsiders feel when he wrote: “His life seems to be a stillness in a frantic world and I admire his mental strength. When Tendulkar goes out to bat, it’s beyond chaos—it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man.”

Some, like Muhammad Ali, protected themselves with a veneer of loudmouthed arrogance. Others, like George Best, lost themselves in a haze of boozy, womanizing nights. With Tendulkar, the humility, the feeling that he considered himself truly fortunate to be doing what he did, never went away, even if it cost him any semblance of a normal life. “I could say that I didn’t get to do all those things that a normal teenager would do,” he told once, “but then again, not many people get the opportunity to do what I do.”

That awareness of the big picture was best illustrated in Steve Waugh’s final Test at SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) in January 2004. Twenty minutes before stumps, with Australia seemingly safe, Waugh—who had scripted a typically defiant 80 just when his team most needed it—swept a delivery from Anil Kumble to deep square leg, where Tendulkar wrapped his hands around it. As 40,000 Australians rose in unison, it took Tendulkar a moment to comprehend the significance of the occasion.

“Honestly, I wasn’t thinking that I had a hand in Steve Waugh’s last dismissal,” he said later. “I was thinking of how we could pull off the win. But once I realized that it was his last innings, I ran all the way from the boundary to congratulate him. I said, ‘You’ve made every Australian proud, and every cricketer admires you’. That was about it really, nothing more.”

Just as Sunil Gavaskar was defined by his heroics against the all-conquering West Indies, so Tendulkar remains peerless because of the enormity of his achievements against Australia. Numbers matter in sport, but nothing counts quite as much as how you do against the best. With 10 Test centuries and eight one-day hundreds against the dominant team of his era, Tendulkar’s place in the pantheon is beyond dispute.

More than cold statistics though, it’s the moments that will endure long after he’s put his bat away for the last time. That final over in the Hero Cup semi-final. The audacious assault on Shane Warne in Chennai. The cold-eyed targeting of Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion, South Africa, in 2003. That 175 in Haydrabad !!! , That match-winning century in Chennai, just a fortnight after the streets in the vicinity of his restaurant in Mumbai had resembled war-torn Beirut.

And most of all, Perth in February 1992. That magical 114 on a lightning-fast pitch, even as the team was routed by 300 runs. Watching the teenager stand on tiptoe and cut and drive with the panache of an old pro in baggy green, Merv Hughes, he of the walrus moustache and the colourful sledges, turned to Allan Border and said, “This little ***** is going to get more runs than you, AB.” And He was right.

Vettori of the Year !!!

In a shocking mix-up that's sure to have major implications on cricket, the ICC has totally misunderstood Ricky Ponting's views on dead-rubber ODIs and have introduced the world's first dead-rubber international world cup.
According to the new tournament rules, eight of the world's top cricketing nations will play each other in a league stage consisting entirely of meaningless dead-rubber matches. The four best teams will then play the two semi-finals and the final, which will also be dead rubbers. The tournament winner will then be decided by a draw of lots.
"This is the first in a long list of initiatives from the ICC to revitalise cricket, based on feedback from the game's many stakeholders, including players, boards, the media and fans," said an ICC spokesman, pulling a rabbit out of his hat for effect. Explaining some of the future plans the ICC has in store for the game, he said, "We all know that fans come to see fours and sixes, so in the future we'll be introducing a new format that will eliminate those pesky singles, twos and dot balls, and will consist solely of boundary hits."
He also hinted at the possibility of a future event that will consist purely of media coverage, with no actual cricket being played. "We'll see how those pampered punk players complain about too much cricket then, shall we?" he thought to himself, making a timely exit before anyone asked inconveniently pertinent questions.
The new tournament has generated mixed responses around the world.
"This idea is worse than the 51 which Sepp Blatter has every day," said an anguished Ponting, who is distraught at being wrongly credited for the innovation. "It's ridiculous. You say one thing and people hear something completely different. Now I know how Harbhajan Singh feels," he said, in an unexpected show of sympathy for Australia's best loved offspinner.
"Oh! Awesome! This is great news for South Africa!" said a delighted Graeme Smith. "We usually lose crucial matches, but since the dead-rubber World Cup will have no crucial matches whatsoever, we're sure to win this time," he pointed out, rather logically.
In another exciting development, India, which recently fired Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh as bowling and fielding coach respectively, has given Singh back his job, albeit in a different role. Singh and former India team-mate Ajay Jadeja will be the new "futile 50-partnership in a losing cause" coaches for the Indian team.
"When your team is down four wickets for 25, chasing a 300-plus total, you need batsmen who can buckle down and put on a dull, pointless 50-run partnership, raise false hope, and then trigger a collapse by needlessly getting run out or holing out to long-on. Robin and I were past masters at this crucial skill, and we're extremely excited to have an opportunity to pass on our knowledge to youngsters," said Jadeja, with Singh nodding his approval.
"It's a skill that has pretty much disappeared from the Indian side, though Praveen Kumar and Harbhajan Singh showed some glimpses of promise in that game against Australia. Still, it was far too exciting to be a true classic in the Jadeja-Robin Singh tradition," said BCCI President Shashank Manohar. "By hiring the former greats as coaches, we hope to bring this aspect of the team back to where it once was," he added, causing a sharp rise in the blood-pressure levels of Indian cricket fans worldwide.
And finally, to save enormous amounts of time and money, New Zealand Cricket has decided to consolidate all their national cricketing awards for bowling, batting, fielding and coaching into a single award called the "Daniel Vettori of the Year".

Sachin at his best

Centurion, 1 March 2003

Sachin Tendulkar has never batted better than in the World Cup of 2003, and during it never better than for three famous deliveries against Shoaib Akhtar in Centurion.

This was a match Tendulkar said he was compelled to live a year in advance. Everywhere he went, people reminded him about the 1st of March, the fixture against Pakistan. Consequently he did not sleep properly for 12 nights leading up.

Facing a handsome target, Tendulkar shed his pent-up anxiety with three strokes in Shoaib's opening over to jumpstart a classic innings. The first of them - reaching out (were he not so pumped up, he would have surely let it pass for a wide), at once cutting and tipping, very high over the square third-man boundary - would become an icon, for cricketing merit; its sheer thrill, and nationalist symbolism, a sort of belated rebuff to the Miandad six.

The second stroke was his lovely trademark - back in the crease and with swirling wrists diverting a reasonable delivery to square leg. But the third shot - the third shot.

A little trot across to off stump, block, down the ground to the on, four. No back-lift, no follow-through: none needed. I have never seen such a concisely expressed cricket stroke. He simply met the ball and the entire execution began there and finished there. And by now the crowd, the most vividly alive of the tournament, had gone quite wild. Visually it was like a cinematic special effect: everything moved in a blur - flags, roars, horns, waves, the ball, Shoaib - and amid it Sachin and his pure stroke appeared magically frozen.

Tendulkar serves notice

Peshawar, 16 December 1989

The crowd was huge, and some of them even had tickets. Many took advantage of the general spirit of friendliness and sat anywhere they could. It is easy to see why the forefathers of the security men at Peshawar could not control the Khyber Pass. Amid the confusion, a legend was born there 20 years ago.

He was 16, had almost curly hair, curiosity in his eyes, and steel in his wrists. His treatment of Abdul Qadir is part of folklore now. Sachin Tendulkar played only because it was not an official one-day match, and Kapil Dev was nursing a stiff neck. At that stage there was no plan to play Tendulkar in the one-day tournament at all. But after that he couldn't be denied.

Eighteen deliveries changed everything. In that time he made 53 (unbeaten), hitting Mushtaq Ahmed for two huge sixes, and then Abdul Qadir for 27 runs in a single over, with three sixes in a row. There was no wild slogging. When Qadir dropped one short as Tendulkar stepped out, the batsman had the arrogance to go through with his shot anyway. The bat made a lovely arc, and for all we know the ball is still travelling - no one could find it.

At the other end was the captain, Kris Srikkanth, no slouch himself. Later that evening he said, referring to the one-day series, "The little bugger must play now." The little bugger has been playing ever since.

Tendulkar goes after Warne

Sharjah, 22 April 1998

Cricket is perhaps the most individual of all team sports. What would it be, shorn of the drama of one-against-one contests?

In this particular case, both actors had etched themselves into cricketing folklore. Both were legends who had little but their egos at stake. And when skill, will, determination and effort all pad up to defend ego, it makes for fascinating viewing.

Shane Warne, injured shoulder ignored, round the wicket to Sachin Tendulkar on a Sharjah track offering some assistance was one such intriguing contest. Before the ball could come down and do its trick, Tendulkar had got to the pitch of it. And once the ball had been reached and the spin smothered, up came the heavy bat with lightning-quick speed to send it straight into the billboards at long-on. Warne had been conquered, Warne had been decimated. And he had been left with a vision that continued to haunt him.

Warne, wiping the sweat off his face in frustration, desperation, or bewilderment and appreciation, perhaps. The great Shane Warne, for once in his life, had thrown in the towel. Tendulkar had well and truly won the contest of the titans. And soon, India the Coca-Cola Cup.

Chennai applauds Pakistan

Chennai, 31 January 1999

Every once in a while, there are moments in sport that transcend the action on the field and yet help establish the very essence of sport by carrying it beyond the confines of nationalism, and indeed victory and defeat. By all standards the first Test of the 1998-99 series between India and Pakistan was going to be remembered as a classic even without the final touch.

It see-sawed for four days: bowled out for 238 on the first day, Pakistan struck back, restricting India to 254. Then Shahid Afridi threatened to take the match beyond India's pale with a violent 141 before Venkatesh Prasad engineered the most sensational of collapses, which sunk Pakistan from 275 for 4 to 286 all out. But at 82 for 5 before lunch on the fourth day, it all seemed over for India - barring Sachin Tendulkar, of course. With stubborn support from Nayan Mongia, Tendulkar chipped away at the target, initially nudging and pushing, and then with a flurry of dazzling strokes.

Mongia lost his head, and his wicket, when India were 53 short, but it was the dismissal of a visibly tired Tendulkar, struggling with a back injury, that swung the match for Pakistan. They claimed the last four wickets for four runs and won by 12 runs.

The series had begun under a cloud of uncertainty, with Indian fundamentalists threatening to disrupt Pakistan's first tour to India in 12 years. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had been prickly at best, and all it needed was a small incident for the tour to be called off. But just as the security forces were getting in to position to tackle any unpleasantness that may have arisen, the crowd in Chennai, stunned at first by the turn of events, rose to their feet and began to clap.

It wasn't delirious or frenzied, but measured and sustained. The Pakistan team immediately took their cue and ran a victory lap around the ground. For anyone with any experience of India-Pakistan cricket, this was a deeply moving, even seminal, moment. Five years later the echoes were still being heard - in the National Stadium in Karachi.

Dravid gets a hundred at Eden

Kolkata, 14 March 2001

For some, like Sachin Tendulkar, greatness comes naturally. For others, like Rahul Dravid, who have it in them to aspire to greatness, it is a peak, which when scaled has a fairytale quality to it. Dravid's aggressive yet anxious waving of his bat in the direction of the media box located at the top of the Eden Gardens club house was one such.

He had been dropped to No. 6 in the batting order, severely criticised for failing against Steve Waugh's mighty Australians, and was suffering cramps and dehydration. The innings was one best described as effort and toil personified.

It all came together in that one moment: both hands went up in triumph, but soon the bat went straight up for the media box. The face, which said nothing, said it all. It announced the maturing of Dravid the team man - one who can certainly aspire to the position of India's best and most dependable batsman of all time.

It was a moment that encapsulated his cricketing philosophy - nothing comes easy, but when it does, it is deeply satisfying, for it is a product of much hard work. It is a moment little remembered for it was overshadowed by other feats. It was vintage Dravid - unassuming but forthright.

Kumble : one of cricket's most inspiring incidence

St John's, 12 May 2002

The sight of Anil Kumble emerging from the pavilion, ready to bowl, his face bandaged, in the Antigua Test of 2002, is one of cricket's most inspiring.

Kumble sent down 14 consecutive overs and became the first bowler to dismiss Brian Lara while bowling with a broken jaw. He was due to fly back to Bangalore the following day for surgery, and as he said, "At least I can now go home with the thought that I tried my best.

"It was one of the bravest things I've seen on the field of play," said Viv Richards later.

Batting at No. 7 (Ajay Ratra at No. 8 made a century), Kumble was hit by Merv Dillon. He spat out blood but batted on for another 20 minutes. The series was poised 1-1 and this was the fourth Test. India declared at 513 for 9.

Lesser acts have become legends in the game. Colin Cowdrey's coming out with a broken hand against West Indies in 1963, for example. He didn't have to face a ball, as his partner saved the Test. But it is cited for bravery even ahead of Australian Rick McCosker's batting at No. 10 with a broken jaw, which contributed to his team's victory in the Centenary Test.

Kumble's Test was drawn, West Indies declaring at 629 for 9. His reason for returning to bowl: "I didn't want to sit around" is as fine an example of the self-effacing statement as you will find in cricket.

In the memory lane : Ganguly takes his shirt off

London, 13 July 2002

I remember it vividly. Mum was woken from her sleep, dad was going ballistic in his rocking chair, and I was prancing between hall, kitchen and mid-air. All of a sudden, one glance at the television and there was Sourav Ganguly baring his torso, swinging his India shirt, hurling invective, making quite a spectacle of himself.

The camera moved to Freddie Flintoff, a destroyed bowler, squatting on the pitch after conceding the winning run. The same Flintoff who'd charged topless around the Wankhede Stadium a few months earlier. Ganguly, standing on the Lord's balcony, was delivering the mother of all tit-for-tats, and it took some time before we could grasp the enormity of the defiance. Headquarters of cricket, the MCC's sanctum sanctorum, egg-and-bacon ties… and here was a scene out of Kolkata's Salt Lake Stadium after a local derby.

An extraordinary match got its perfect climax - hero extracting revenge and indulging in a war dance. The Wankhede and Lord's would be treated equally. We needed no further vindication that this Indian team was playing an inspired brand of cricket, not only with bat and ball but also with the head, and that it would wear its heart on its sleeve.

Dad, who grew up on tales of Ken Barrington, was a little shocked when he witnessed the scenes, and we ended up having a silly argument over the "spirit of the game". I simply loved it, mostly because it was the one moment where the essence of Ganguly was plain to see, the one moment we related perfectly to. Dada taught us several things on the cricket field; that day, he taught us how to celebrate.

Me .... and my flaws

I have flaws. I have a lot of them. I used to hate that. I struggled to be the best at everything. To be everything to everyone. If I wasn’t perfect at something, I hated myself for it. I wanted to be a stunning cricketer, a brilliant painter, a fabulous singer, among other things. I ran up against my own limits without understanding that we all have things we are good at and things we aren’t. I have zero sense of rhythm so for as much as I love singing, I couldn’t match a rhythm with the music.I have difficulty seeing the possibilities beyond the reality so I never found the inspiration to creat great paintings.

It’s taken me years to understand this one simple thing: flaws are better. They make you interesting. That I didn’t do those things perfectly doesn’t make me less of a person. It makes me more of one. It gives me empathy for others. Because mostly, we aren’t brilliant at our lives. We are mundane. We go thru our lives the way we are told we should. We graduate from high school, go to college, get a job, get married, have children, grow old without really thinking about it. Most of us can deal with this. It’s enough. Some of us can’t though. We search for more.

I used to think this was a miserable fate, to be boring, to be just like everyone else, to not be special. What I’ve found over and over again is my life is that most people are just that and they still manage to create beautiful things. They still inspire one another. They still seem amazing to others regardless of how they see themselves.

I like my flaws. I surround myself with others who see value in my flaws and in this way I create strength and value in myself and others.

One of these days I will switch on the television and not feel like watching cricket any more. Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly have left the game, and Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar are surely next. Then VVS Laxman. I'll switch that TV back off, find something else to do, and maybe check the score every hour. Or not.

My nostalgia won't come from the fact that these guys were so good. I'm confident that equally good players will arrive on the scene, as they always do. We will see breathtaking strokeplay, audacious captaincy and matchwinning spells of bowling. These men are special to me not because of what they did on the cricket field, but because of the place they occupied in my emotional landscape. Their retirement feels like a phase of my life is over.

Back when we were young - by 'we' I mean Sachin and me - we watched cricket in a different way. Watching cricket was one of the handful of leisure pastimes open to me. Sure, I read books, but how many books could you read? There was no internet in those days, Doordarshan was all you had for television, and going out to watch a movie was an occasional experience. Cricket, when it was on, filled the gaps in our days. It also gave us something to cheer for - there wasn't much else back then.

I remember watching Sachin's debut on television feeling slightly jealous. Here he was, just few older than me, already playing cricket for India. But that feeling vanished once he began batting. I was too young then to be able to isolate the qualities that make a batsman great - the balance, the still head, the minimal movement, how early he saw the ball and how late he played it. But the strokeplay of a great batsman is always more than the sum of its parts, and watching Sachin could be a magical experience. What's more, this kid liked to attack, unlike the giant he'd just missed playing with, Sunnybhai.

Anil Kumble took longer to warm to. Spinners are often attritional, and Kumble took his time to work his way into our affections. He won us more matches than any other player in the 90s, but many of them were at home, on tracks prepared to suit him. We did not give that much importance, pointing to his overseas record, even as he protested that a bowler could only bowl a side out when his team put runs on the board - and Indians never did on non-subcontinental tracks.

That changed in the new millennium. Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly came into their own, VVS Laxman blossomed, and Kumble showed that he could be a matchwinner anywhere. In the decades before this, our teams had mainly frustrated us, as we thought about what could have been.These men inspired us. Do you remember Anil Kumble with a broken jaw, wrapped up in bandage, running in and taking Brian Lara's wicket in Antigua? I stayed up all night to watch those matches, and I remember being unable to sleep the morning after Kumble did that, so stirring it was.

In all this time, India changed. We liberalised, opened up parts of the economy, got ourselves a few hundred TV channels, the internet and a new way of living. Our cricketers changed too - an analogy now too cliched to repeat. But this much is true - we finally shrugged off our inferiority complex and started giving it back to the goras. I can't forget the Natwest Trophy final, with Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh helped us nail an unlikely win. Or Sourav Ganguly waving his T-shirt around as if to say, "take that, you #$@#!" I remember Sourav at Brisbane. I remember Rahul Dravid seizing the moment to deliver some of our most memorable wins, at Headingley, Adelaide and Rawalpindi. I remember Laxman, who could make you pinch yourself with disbelief, so beautifully he batted.

Like Sachin, like these other men, I've grown up now. I watch cricket differently - there are no many leisure options open to me, and I admit that I don't watch every match that India plays. Sometimes I go to a pub and chill with friends; sometimes I surf the internet, or watch videos on YouTube; sometimes I hang at a mall, drink coffee in the food court, browse books at a bookstore 80 times bigger than the stores of my youth. I no longer have the scorecards of every Test India has played memorised - India plays way too much for that now. I don't have stats at the tip of my fingers, though I have memories I will never forget. Some days, cricket doesn't excite me, it makes me nostalgic. I guess I'm growing old.

If I was ten years younger, no doubt MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma would occupy the space in my life that Kumble and those four batsmen did. But these new dudes aren't milestones in my life, the way their predecessors were. Sometimes you hear a song from your childhood and it transports you back to how you were then, and evokes the innocence or hope or youthful loss of another time. These new songs don't do it for me that way. They're nice, and I'll hum and dance, and I'll be bemused when the selectors play their besura antakshari, but that's it.

Great. So I started this piece thinking I will lament the retirement of these fine players, but instead I've mourned the passing of a phase of my own life. We Indian cricket fans are selfish, aren't we?